If ACE were to develop curriculum and/or professional development opportunities for post ACE graduates, what are possible delivery systems to use?
1) CONCOURSE through ND.
PROS:
Proven track record already developed
Familiarity to Blackboard/Concourse system with ACE teachers and professors
Access may be possible post graduation of ACE or other teachers (being investigated now as STEP has program on concourse)
Can be set up for fee/pay program (STEP is set up this way and work has already been done in this area.)
CONS:
Possible learning curve to outside members not familiar with Concourse
Possible access and security issues (being investigated as of February 3, 2010)
*Notre Dame OpenCourseWare (OCW) runs on the open source eduCommons platform. Its purpose is to provide open access to materials used in a variety of courses taught at Notre Dame. The ND website for OWC is located here.
One downside with the eduCommons software is there are no tools such as quizzes, discussion areas, etc. Here is a link to MIT's sitethat started this project back in the 1990's and has extensive course work available.
2) Moodle - "Moodle is a course management system designed to help educators who want to create quality online courses. The software is used all over the world by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers. Moodle is open source and completely free to use."
A site that provides free moodle hosting: You might like to sign-up with them just to play around with the various features. Also, if you look at the moodle themes page, you’ll get an idea of the many different “looks” a moodle site can take on.
3) Sakai - "The Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment is developed by a community that strives to enable exceptional teaching, learning and research" and free alternative to Moodle.
1) CONCOURSE through ND.
PROS:
Proven track record already developed
Familiarity to Blackboard/Concourse system with ACE teachers and professors
- Access may be possible post graduation of ACE or other teachers (being investigated now as STEP has program on concourse)
Can be set up for fee/pay program (STEP is set up this way and work has already been done in this area.)CONS:
Possible learning curve to outside members not familiar with Concourse
Possible access and security issues (being investigated as of February 3, 2010)
*Notre Dame OpenCourseWare (OCW) runs on the open source eduCommons platform. Its purpose is to provide open access to materials used in a variety of courses taught at Notre Dame. The ND website for OWC is located here.
One downside with the eduCommons software is there are no tools such as quizzes, discussion areas, etc. Here is a link to MIT's sitethat started this project back in the 1990's and has extensive course work available.
2) Moodle - "Moodle is a course management system designed to help educators who want to create quality online courses. The software is used all over the world by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers. Moodle is open source and completely free to use."
Getting Started for Teachers and Administrators
Here is a Moodle Quick Start Guide.
Wikipedia page: This has links to similar platforms, including Sakai
The OpenLearn project: This website has hundreds of lessons available.
Univ. of Utah OCW: You’ll find their courses listed by department, using the links at the bottom of the page under “Sub-categories”.
Moodle Commons - More open courses, including Moodle training are available at this website.
Moodlerooms Teams up for Mobile Technology is a brief article about how this type of software is changing and becoming even more accessible.
Need web hosting tool for free open course pages:
3) Sakai - "The Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment is developed by a community that strives to enable exceptional teaching, learning and research" and free alternative to Moodle.
Wikipedia page
Sakai at Rutgers
Sakai at Claremont Colleges
You may be interested in this article - The Future of e-Learning is Growth.
***Special thanks to Laura Gekeler (ND's OIT office) and Cathy Schulz (Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning) for assistance with this information!